No Arabic abstract
As part of our program to map the large-scale distribution of galaxies behind the Milky Way, we used the Parkes 210 ft (64 m) radio telescope for pointed HI observations of a sample of low surface-brightness (due to heavy obscuration) spiral galaxies selected from the deep optical Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) galaxy catalog in the Hydra/Antlia region (Kraan-Korteweg 2000a). Searching a simultaneous velocity range of either 300 to 5500 km/s or 300 to 10500 km/s to an rms level of typically 2 - 4 mJy resulted in detections in 61 of the 139 pointings, leading to a total of 66 detections (an additional detection was made in a reference position, and two other pointings revealed two and four independent signals respectively). Except for 2 strong HI emitters identified in the shallow Zone of Avoidance HI survey (Henning et al. 2000), all HI detections are new. An analysis of the properties of the observed and detected galaxies prove that pointed HI observations of highly obscured galaxies allow the tracing of a population of nearby, intrinsically large and bright spiral galaxies that otherwise would not be recovered. The new data identified a previously unrecognized nearby group at l=287.5, b=-9.5, V=1700 km/s, the continuation of the Hydra/Antlia filament on the opposite side of the Galactic plane, and helped to delimit a distinct void in the ZOA centered at 2000 km/s.
As part of our programme to map the large-scale distribution of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way, we observed 314 optically-selected, partially-obscured galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) in the Crux and Great Attractor (GA) regions. The observations were conducted with the Parkes 64m radio telescope, in a single-pixel pointed mode, reaching an rms noise level of typically 2-6 mJy over the velocity search range of 400<v<10500km/s. A total of 162 galaxies were detected. This can be explained by the prominence of the GA overdensity in the survey regions, which leads to a relatively higher fraction of nearby galaxies. It is also evident from the quite narrow velocity distribution (largely confined to 3000-6000km/s) and deviates significantly from the expectation of a uniform galaxy distribution for the given sensitivity and velocity range. No systematic differences were found between detections and non-detections, in terms of latitude, foreground extinction, or environment, except for the very central part of the rich Norma cluster, where hardly any galaxies were detected. A detailed investigation of the HI content of the galaxies reveals strong HI deficiency at the core of the Norma cluster (within about a 0.4 Abell radius), similar to what has been found in the Coma cluster. The redshifts obtained by this observing technique result in a substantial reduction of the so-called redshift ZOA. This is obvious when analysing the large-scale structure of the new HI data in combination with data from optical ZOA redshift surveys. The lower latitude detections provide further evidence of the extension of the Norma Wall, across the ZOA, in particular its bending towards the Cen-Crux clusters above the Galactic plane at slightly higher redshift, rather than a straight continuation towards the Centaurus clusters.
A first analysis of a deep blind HI survey covering the southern Zone of Avoidance plus an extension towards the north (196 < l < 52 deg) obtained with the Multibeam receiver at the 64m Parkes telescope reveals slightly over a thousand galaxies within the latitude completeness limit of |b| < 5deg. The characteristics and the uncovered large-scale structures of this survey are described, in particular the prominence of the Norma Supercluster, the possible cluster around PKS 1343-601 (both in the Great Attractor region), as well as the Local Void and the clustering in the Puppis region. In this blind HI survey, HIZOA J0836-43, one of the most massive spiral galaxies known to date was discovered (M(HI) = 7.3 10^10 Msun M(tot) = 1.1 10^12 Msun; Ho = 75 km/s/Mpc). Although of similar mass as Malin 1-like objects, this galaxy does not share their typical low-surface brightness properties but seems an exceptionally massive but normal, high-surface brightness, star-forming galaxy.
About 25% of the optical extragalactic sky is obscured by the dust and stars of our Milky Way. Dynamically important structures might still lie hidden in this zone. Various approaches are presently being employed to uncover the galaxy distribution in this Zone of Avoidance (ZOA). Results as well as the different limitations and selection effects from these multi-wavelengths explorations are being discussed. Galaxies within the innermost part of the Milky Way - typically at a foreground obscuration in the blue of A_B > 5mag and |b| < 5 deg - remain particularly difficult to uncover except for HI-surveys: the Galaxy is fully transparent at the 21cm line and HI-rich galaxies are easy to trace. We will report here on the first results from the systematic blind HI-search (v < 12700 km/s) in the southern Zone of Avoidance which is currently being conducted with the Parkes Multibeam (MB) Receiver.
Current studies of the peculiar velocity flow field in the Local Universe are limited by the lack of detection of galaxies behind the Milky Way. The contribution of the largely unknown mass distribution in this Zone of Avoidance (ZoA) to the dynamics of the Local group remains contraversial. We have undertaken a near infrared (NIR) survey of HI detected galaxies in the ZoA. The photomety derived here will be used in the NIR Tully-Fisher (TF) relation to derive the peculiar velocities of this sample of galaxies in the ZoA.
A deep optical galaxy search behind the southern Milky Way and a subsequent redshift survey of the identified obscured galaxies traces clusters and superclusters into the deepest layers of Galactic foreground extinction (A_B <= 3^m - 5^m). In the Great Attractor region, we have identified a low-mass cluster (the Centaurus-Crux cluster) at (l, b, v, sigma) = (305.5deg, +5.5deg, 6214 km/s, 472 km/s) and found that ACO 3627 (the Norma cluster) at (l, b, v, sigma) = (325.3deg, -7.2deg, 4844 km/s, 848 km/s) is the most massive cluster in the Great Attractor region known to date. It is comparable in virial mass, richness and size to the well-known but more distant Coma cluster. The Norma cluster most likely marks the bottom of the potential well of the Great Attractor. It is located at the intersection of two main large-scale structures, the Centaurus Wall and the Norma supercluster. The flow field observed around the Great Attractor probably is caused by the confluence of these two massive structures.